In her 30s, Kheng Hua Tan left a corporate job in Singapore to pursue acting full-time, gracing stage and screen in Southeast Asia for decades. Following her role as Empress Dowager on Netflix’s “Marco Polo,” Tan’s international breakthrough came in 2018 with “Crazy Rich Asians,” where she played Kerry Chu, mother to Constance Wu’s Rachel. Now, she stars on the CW’s “Kung Fu,” a re-imagining of the 1970s series of the same name, playing Mei-Li, protagonist Nicky’s mother, who, along with her husband, harbors secrets as they deal with the return of their estranged daughter.
“I tend to say yes very quickly and then work it out after I say yes.”
What was the moment you decided you wanted to be an actor?
Because I come from Singapore and because the Singapore art scene is very different from the very mature and evolved scene in North America, particularly when it comes to television and film, I would say that I never seriously considered it as a career until I was in my early 30s. I had a huge corporate job. I was doing a lot of acting part-time. I had taken some time off from my corporate job to go on a tour to Perth in Australia with one of the foremost theater companies from Singapore, and we were touring this beautiful original Singapore play and we went to the Perth International Arts Festival. I came back from this tour, I had this amazing corporate job, and then I sat across the dining room table from my then-husband, and I remember telling him I can imagine myself in this corporate job for a very, very long time because I was good at it and I loved the people that I worked with. But if I don’t quit, I’ll never be able to see what it feels like to spend whole days with this other love. Despite the fact that I was doing so well in my corporate career, I bit the bullet and I quit my full-time job. I didn’t have an acting job to go into straight away, but I did it anyway.
What advice would you give your younger self?
To follow your joy. I’m a lucky person in that I do have a knack of finding joy no matter where I am in the world, whether I’m in Singapore or Malaysia, where I worked a lot, or later on in my life, spending so much time in Los Angeles after “Crazy Rich Asians.” I tend to not take on a project unless there is something inside me that says, “This is going to bring you a lot of joy, Kheng.” By following that instinct, by knowing what makes you happy, my career has symmetry and fulfillment.
What’s the wildest thing you ever did to get a role?
One of the most risky things I have ever done is probably in my early 40s, after I had acted for many years. I thought to myself that I really wanted to try producing. And then not knowing anything about producing for television or producing for the stage within the span of two years, I found myself creating and producing a project [called “Love Above All”] that out of the blue I wrote a concept paper for and submitted it into the Singapore television station, and then it got picked up!
The Secret to Writing + Producing Your Own Content Similarly, a friend of mine, out of the blue, called me up and said would you be interested in producing this big original Singapore cabaret theater production? And I just said yes without even thinking about things, without even doing any research. These two projects were within two years of each other, and I remember diving head first into these projects, learning in this incredibly steep learning curve. I would just wake up every day and be completely obsessed with doing things to service these productions and doing what all producers do, which is basically everything and anything you can do to get the project up on its feet and where you want it to go. And you know what? That gene is still in me today. I tend to say yes very quickly and then work it out after I say yes.
What advice do you have for actors working in a global market?
The old-fashioned work ethic always works very well, which is: know your shit and turn up on time. [Laughs] It may seem so commonsensical, but that seems to work well. The other thing is that it is important to not underestimate how such an evolved industry, like the one that is in existence in Hollywood, how much hard work is required. I always make sure that I appreciate the people that I’m working with from all capacities. I know it takes a village. But in order to make this village work, it all begins with respect.
What is your worst audition horror story?
Right after “Crazy Rich Asians,” when so many doors suddenly started opening in this market, I would go for so many auditions. I remember being asked to do an audition as a lawyer for “How To Get Away With Murder.” When I went into the audition room, I tripped on this one word. I didn't think much about it and I said, “Sorry about that, can I do it again?” And everybody was so nice and they said, “Yeah, sure do it again.” Then I tripped on the same word again. And then I flubbed on the same word the third time, and it was downhill from there. The people were so nice and they said to me, “Kheng, would you like to hold onto your script?” My heart just sank. The same casting agent, maybe a month later, straight away offered me a role on “Grey’s Anatomy,” which I got and I played.
What’s one performance every actor should see and why?
The first one that comes into my mind is when I watched Helen Mirren in “The Audience” live in London at the theater. To see such a celebrated actor like herself at that stage of her career to make time for a play—and a play that she had to play Queen Elizabeth in many different stages of her life—I tell you, she was perfect.
Tell me about what it was like to shoot a show during the pandemic.
I think it has become even more meaningful because we’re shooting in COVID. Our bubble has been so strictly kept because we are a pretty focused bunch. The feeling is very much love and respect you have for each other. That you go through a war together. You only have each other to witness what we are going through. It’s not like we have shot many seasons of “Kung Fu.” This is a brand new series; and therefore, the newness of it, all of us discovering each other, falling in love with each other, having to rely on each other—only the people who have been in this particular bubble really understand how emotional it has been because so many of us are either married or we have family and we all left them behind. It’s almost like we created our own country.
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